Tag Archives: chocolate

Admittedly, my oven has been in a period of quiescence recently, due to my battle with cholesterol. However, I have decided to wake it up when we have company. Self-saucing pudding is good in so many ways. It tastes deliciously warm, isn’t too rich, is simple yet impressive, can be prepared in advance, can be transported, and keeps well for microwave re-heating.

One memory I have of this pudding is my dad asking my mum and I, “How do you make the sauce?” “It makes it own sauce,” we replied. “No, but you have to do something to have sauce,” he contested. “Nope, that’s why it’s called ‘self-saucing’ pudding”. “hmpf”, clearly suspicious of some sort of chicanery.

There are many memories of this one at Christmas time as well. The warm pudding which is too warm for a Brisbane summer, was offset by refreshingly cold ice-cream, the kind that was so frozen you had to boil the scoop, and have a strong aunt dish it out. The soft bits being mixed in, the crispier top smashed, and the sauce being drizzled over the top. I have many cousins, so there would be a subtle power-walking to the desert table, as the sauce was spooned out from underneath the entire pudding by the early birds, leaving the last few pieces dryer than they should be.

Being near to a certain Catholic holiday, I thought it appropriate to make Lebkuchen (Love Cookies). Only after the boy ate some dough, and asked, “Does this have ginger in it?”, did I remember his allergy. A quick wikipedia search taught me that another spice prominent in the recipe, cardamom, is in the same family as ginger, and those allergic to one, are often allergic to the others. Who needs arsenic?

Lebkuchen

Unfortunately (for him), most of my favourite recipes have ginger in them, and I love ginger in most everything. Furthermore, this recipe would give me an opportunity to use some of the marmalade I made (say that ten times fast).